Iran designed naval attack drones used against shipping off Yemen

Iranian-backed Houthi rebels working to take power in Yemen are using a new weapon that is raising fears of seaborne attacks on both military and commercial shipping in the region.

The weapon is an Iranian-designed remotely piloted small boat filled with explosives, a defense official told Inside the Ring.

The exact number of the explosive drone boats is not known, but the rebels are believed to have enough to threaten ships that pass through the strategic sea lanes off the Yemeni coast. The Navy has intelligence photos of the deadly boats but declined a request to release them. The boats were first detected after one was used in an attack Jan. 30 on a Saudi frigate in the Red Sea.

Iran is backing Houthi rebels as part of a strategy of seeking to encircle its rival, Saudi Arabia, and ultimately to take control of the peninsula.

One strategic objective of the Iranians is to control the strategic Bab el-Mandeb or Mandeb Strait on the southern Red Sea that is a major shipping passage.

Iran already has a major influence in Iraq and in the past has threatened to shut down shipping in the Persian Gulf by targeting traffic passing through the Hormuz Strait....

The US may need to add A-10 overflights to the region as well as Apache attack helicopters. The US and its allies also need to find the base of operations for these attacks and destroy them at their source. It is possible that Iran may be offloading these weapons in Oman and moving them overland to escape the embargo on Yemen. The area around Oman may need to be quarantined and have cargo examined before offloading.

"It continues. Have seen gunships firing and heard much activity in the last few hours."...
The Iraqi claim is plausible. It is just the kind of thing that could be expected from ISIS forces. ISIS is in a desperate fight and appears willing to pull down all those around them as they lose.

Some injuries were reported and more than a dozen people were arrested after opposing sides clashed at dueling pro- and anti-Trump rallies, Berkeley, Calif., police said.
The liberals engage in projection by calling Trump supporters fascists, when it is in fact, their supporters who are sparking the violence in Califonia. There is a strain of intolerance for other points of view that is enforced by people dressed in black and their faces covered. They physically attack Trump supporters or other conservatives. These people may wear black but the are the Brownshirts of liberal fascism.

Fuel Fix:
OPEC producers took another 153,000 barrels a day off the market in March as part of its bid to drain the world’s oil glut.

In the cartel’s monthly report released Wednesday, independent sources reported the group of oil-producing countries has cut output by 1.1 million barrels a day since December.

Last month, Libya’s output dropped by nearly 9 percent, and production edged lower in the United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, Angola and other countries. Saudi Arabia raised production by 41,000 barrels a day.

That effort has pushed oil prices above $50 a barrel in recent months, breathing life into U.S. oil patches like the Permian Basin. U.S. crude rose 16 cents on Wednesday to $53.56 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, as traders reacted to media reports that Saudi Arabia, the cartel’s de facto leader, wants to see OPEC continue production cuts into the second half of this year.

But even as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries works to slow…